Euzhan Palcy
Encyclopedia
Euzhan Palcy is a film director writer and producer from Martinique
, French West Indies. She is notable for being the first black female director produced by a major Hollywood studio (MGM), for A Dry White Season
; as well as being the only female filmmaker who directed Marlon Brando
(she brought him back to the screen after a gap of nine years).
, Euzhan Palcy grew up studying the films of Fritz Lang
, Alfred Hitchcock
, Billy Wilder
and Orson Welles
. She left for Paris in 1975 to earn a master's degree in French Literature, in theater at the Sorbonne
, a D.E.A. in Art and Archeology and a film degree (specializing in cinematography) from renowned Louis Lumière College
.
It was in Paris, with the encouragement of her "French Godfather", François Truffaut
, that she was able to put together her first feature, Sugar Cane Alley
(1983). Shot for less than $1,000,000, it documents through the eyes of a young boy the love and sacrifice of a poor black family living on a Martinique sugar cane plantation in the 1930s. Sugar Cane Alley won over 17 international awards including the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion, as well as the Coppa Volpi (Volpi Cup
) for Best Lead Actress Award (Darling Legitimus
). It also won the prestigious César Award
(the French equivalent to Academy Award) for best first feature film.
After seeing Palcy's work, Robert Redford
handpicked her to attend the 1984 Sundance Director's Lab (Sundance Institute
), becoming her "American Godfather".
was so moved by her next project, A Dry White Season
(1989), and her commitment to social change that he came out of a self-imposed retirement, agreeing to act in the film for free. Also starring in the film were actors Donald Sutherland
and Susan Sarandon
. Palcy adapted A Dry White Season from the novel by South African writer, André Brink
. The story focuses on the social movements of South Africa and the Soweto
riots, and was heralded for putting the politics of apartheid into meaningful human terms. Palcy was so passionate about creating an accurate portrayal on film that she traveled to Soweto undercover, posing as a recording artist, to research the riots. She became the first black female director produced by a major Hollywood studio. Brando's performance in the movie earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and he received the Best Actor Award at the Tokyo Film Festival. For her outstanding cinematic achievement, Palcy received the "Orson Welles Award" in Los Angeles. A few months after the release of the film, Palcy was welcomed by Nelson Mandela
in South Africa.
with Simeon (1992), a musical comedic fairytale set in the Caribbean and Paris and the three-part documentary Aimé Césaire
, A Voice For History (1994) about the famed Martinique poet, playwright and philosopher. Both garnered numerous awards and international critical acclaim.
Other works include for Disney/ABC Studios, Palcy directed and produced Ruby Bridges (1998) the story of the little New Orleans girl who was the first to integrate the public schools, immortalized in the painting by Norman Rockwell
. President Bill Clinton
and Disney President, Michael Eisner
introduced the film to American audiences. For Paramount/Showtime Studios, she directed The Killing Yard (2001), starring Alan Alda
and Morris Chestnut
. The drama is based on the true events surrounding the 1971 Attica prison riot which had an indelible impact on the American prison system and jury process.
In 2006, she wrote and directed the documentary, Parcours de Dissidents, narrated by Oscar-Nominated French actor, Gérard Depardieu
. Most recently, Palcy wrote and directed the French three-hour period piece set in the 17th century, Les Mariées de I’isles Bourbon (The Brides of Bourbon Island) (2007). It tells of a romantic, historic epic action adventure where three women survive a harrowing ocean voyage from France to forcibly marry French expatriates on the island of Réunion.
She left Hollywood for a time and returned to Paris on a sort of self-imposed exile. "I don’t want to be typecast" she said, "nor did I want to be used by putting my name on everything to advance someone else's agenda. That's why I don’t have a lot of films." However, Palcy has recently returned to working with the studios, collaborating as she says, "in a different way." Projects include attachments by Academy Award alums, Ellen Burstyn
and Sam Shepard
.
In 1994, she was honored with the distinction of Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite (Knight in the National Order Merit) from French President, François Mitterrand
. In 1997 in Amiens
, France, a movie theater was named "Cinema Euzhan Palcy." In 2000, she received the honor of having Martinique's first high school dedicated to film study named after her and was presented with the Sojourner Truth Award at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
. In 2004, she was the recipient of the famous French Medal of Honor from French President Jacques Chirac
. In 2009 she is bestowed Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite (Officer in the National Order of Merit) from French President Nicolas Sarkozy
. Miss Palcy is citizen of honour of six cities including (New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, Sarasota, Florida.)
For Fox Studios, Palcy co-wrote an animated feature, currently entitled Katoumbaza to be executive produced by her as well. She is actively developing a feature film on Bessie Coleman
for which she recorded the very last witness of the first African-American aviatrix journey in France and an action comedy, Filet Mignon set in Los Angeles and Paris. Palcy has chosen Midnight's Last Ride, (with Ellen Burstyn
and Sam Shepard
) a comedy drama and a project close to her heart, to be her next film to co-produce and direct in New Mexico.
The 64th Cannes Film Festival will make a special tribute to the director while The Museum of Modern Art in New York City will organize "The Euzhan Palcy Retrospective" from May 18 - May 30, 2011.
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
, French West Indies. She is notable for being the first black female director produced by a major Hollywood studio (MGM), for A Dry White Season
A Dry White Season
A Dry White Season is a film released in 1989 by Davros Films and Sundance Productions and distributed by MGM. It was directed by Euzhan Palcy and produced by Paula Weinstein, Mary Selway and Tim Hampton. The screenplay was by Colin Welland and Euzhan Palcy, based upon André Brink's novel of the...
; as well as being the only female filmmaker who directed Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
(she brought him back to the screen after a gap of nine years).
Early life and career
Born in MartiniqueMartinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
, Euzhan Palcy grew up studying the films of Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
, Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
and Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
. She left for Paris in 1975 to earn a master's degree in French Literature, in theater at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
, a D.E.A. in Art and Archeology and a film degree (specializing in cinematography) from renowned Louis Lumière College
Louis Lumiere College
Louis Lumière College offers theoretical, practical as well as technical and artistic education and training for those wishing to go into the various branches of the audiovisual industry....
.
It was in Paris, with the encouragement of her "French Godfather", François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, that she was able to put together her first feature, Sugar Cane Alley
Sugar Cane Alley
Sugar Cane Alley is a 1983 film directed by Euzhan Palcy. It is set in Martinique in the 1930s, where blacks working sugarcane fields were still treated harshly by the white ruling class...
(1983). Shot for less than $1,000,000, it documents through the eyes of a young boy the love and sacrifice of a poor black family living on a Martinique sugar cane plantation in the 1930s. Sugar Cane Alley won over 17 international awards including the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion, as well as the Coppa Volpi (Volpi Cup
Volpi Cup
The Volpi Cups are the principal awards given to actors at the Venice Film Festival. Formal acting awards were introduced in the second festival . Initially they were called Great Gold Medals of the National Fascist Association for Entertainment. The name Volpi Cup was introduced the following year...
) for Best Lead Actress Award (Darling Legitimus
Darling Légitimus
Darling Légitimus, born Mathilda Paruta on 21 November 1907 at Le Carbet, who died on 7 December 1999 at the age of 92, at Kremlin-Bicetre, was a French actress originated from Carraibes black artistes...
). It also won the prestigious César Award
César Award
The César Award is the national film award of France, first given out in 1975. The nominations are selected by the members of the Académie des arts et techniques du cinéma....
(the French equivalent to Academy Award) for best first feature film.
After seeing Palcy's work, Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
handpicked her to attend the 1984 Sundance Director's Lab (Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981 that actively advances the work of filmmakers and storytellers worldwide...
), becoming her "American Godfather".
A Dry White Season
Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
was so moved by her next project, A Dry White Season
A Dry White Season
A Dry White Season is a film released in 1989 by Davros Films and Sundance Productions and distributed by MGM. It was directed by Euzhan Palcy and produced by Paula Weinstein, Mary Selway and Tim Hampton. The screenplay was by Colin Welland and Euzhan Palcy, based upon André Brink's novel of the...
(1989), and her commitment to social change that he came out of a self-imposed retirement, agreeing to act in the film for free. Also starring in the film were actors Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
and Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...
. Palcy adapted A Dry White Season from the novel by South African writer, André Brink
André Brink
André Philippus Brink, OIS, is a South African novelist. He writes in Afrikaans and English and is a Professor of English at the University of Cape Town....
. The story focuses on the social movements of South Africa and the Soweto
Soweto
Soweto is a lower-class-populated urban area of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships...
riots, and was heralded for putting the politics of apartheid into meaningful human terms. Palcy was so passionate about creating an accurate portrayal on film that she traveled to Soweto undercover, posing as a recording artist, to research the riots. She became the first black female director produced by a major Hollywood studio. Brando's performance in the movie earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and he received the Best Actor Award at the Tokyo Film Festival. For her outstanding cinematic achievement, Palcy received the "Orson Welles Award" in Los Angeles. A few months after the release of the film, Palcy was welcomed by Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
in South Africa.
Later career
By 1992 Palcy veered away from the serious subject matters of her previous films to show the spirit and liveliness of her native MartiniqueMartinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
with Simeon (1992), a musical comedic fairytale set in the Caribbean and Paris and the three-part documentary Aimé Césaire
Aimé Césaire
Aimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...
, A Voice For History (1994) about the famed Martinique poet, playwright and philosopher. Both garnered numerous awards and international critical acclaim.
Other works include for Disney/ABC Studios, Palcy directed and produced Ruby Bridges (1998) the story of the little New Orleans girl who was the first to integrate the public schools, immortalized in the painting by Norman Rockwell
Norman Rockwell
Norman Percevel Rockwell was a 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening...
. President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
and Disney President, Michael Eisner
Michael Eisner
Michael Dammann Eisner is an American businessman. He was the chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company from 1984 until 2005.-Early life:...
introduced the film to American audiences. For Paramount/Showtime Studios, she directed The Killing Yard (2001), starring Alan Alda
Alan Alda
Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo , better known as Alan Alda, is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H...
and Morris Chestnut
Morris Chestnut
Morris L. Chestnut is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles as teenage father Ricky Baker in the 1991 film Boyz n the Hood, groom-to-be Lance Sullivan in the 1999 film The Best Man, as Tracy Reynolds, NBA star in the 2002 film Like Mike, and as the Visitor Ryan in the...
. The drama is based on the true events surrounding the 1971 Attica prison riot which had an indelible impact on the American prison system and jury process.
In 2006, she wrote and directed the documentary, Parcours de Dissidents, narrated by Oscar-Nominated French actor, Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu is a French actor and filmmaker. He is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite and has twice won the César Award for Best Actor...
. Most recently, Palcy wrote and directed the French three-hour period piece set in the 17th century, Les Mariées de I’isles Bourbon (The Brides of Bourbon Island) (2007). It tells of a romantic, historic epic action adventure where three women survive a harrowing ocean voyage from France to forcibly marry French expatriates on the island of Réunion.
She left Hollywood for a time and returned to Paris on a sort of self-imposed exile. "I don’t want to be typecast" she said, "nor did I want to be used by putting my name on everything to advance someone else's agenda. That's why I don’t have a lot of films." However, Palcy has recently returned to working with the studios, collaborating as she says, "in a different way." Projects include attachments by Academy Award alums, Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
and Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
.
In 1994, she was honored with the distinction of Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite (Knight in the National Order Merit) from French President, François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
. In 1997 in Amiens
Amiens
Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...
, France, a movie theater was named "Cinema Euzhan Palcy." In 2000, she received the honor of having Martinique's first high school dedicated to film study named after her and was presented with the Sojourner Truth Award at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
. In 2004, she was the recipient of the famous French Medal of Honor from French President Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
. In 2009 she is bestowed Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite (Officer in the National Order of Merit) from French President Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....
. Miss Palcy is citizen of honour of six cities including (New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, Sarasota, Florida.)
For Fox Studios, Palcy co-wrote an animated feature, currently entitled Katoumbaza to be executive produced by her as well. She is actively developing a feature film on Bessie Coleman
Bessie Coleman
Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman was an American civil aviator. She was the first female pilot of African American descent and the first person of African American descent to hold an international pilot license.-Early life:...
for which she recorded the very last witness of the first African-American aviatrix journey in France and an action comedy, Filet Mignon set in Los Angeles and Paris. Palcy has chosen Midnight's Last Ride, (with Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
and Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
) a comedy drama and a project close to her heart, to be her next film to co-produce and direct in New Mexico.
The 64th Cannes Film Festival will make a special tribute to the director while The Museum of Modern Art in New York City will organize "The Euzhan Palcy Retrospective" from May 18 - May 30, 2011.